More from Producer Tanaka (JP Button)

[Yugl]

If someone leaves your PT early it can't hurt anything, it can either keep things the same or help. If they haven't used their maze, then when the next person comes along they use their maze, no change. You have the delay spent waiting on them but that's no different than waiting on someone to replace someone in a PT anywhere (except it's in Jeuno so it's arguably even better here). AND if the person leaving already used their maze, then you get another maze, so make that 81k before you have to stop.

That assumes you'll find an individual interested in joining after most people have used their mazes. In a perfect setting where you can look up people, tell them it's maze time, and replace them like any other merit PT, it's a nice system. However, it's a hassle to convince someone to join a group where they know they'll receive less than half the XP (Depends on who went already) when they can join another group for the full XP. Moreover, having bad players doesn't hurt you as badly at merit camps as it does during maze runs. If someone screws up badly (Talking about real n00bs here), there's potential that you've used your maze and destroyed a hefty portion of that XP.

I guess a better way to look at it is this. It's the best exp/h, but you're not saying "I'm going to go exp for X hours, let me get the most exp I can get in that time," you're saying "I'm going to get Y exp, let me get that done in the fastest amount of time possible." 11.8k exp (whether done in 15min a run so 47k exp/h or 20min a run at 35k/h) is 70k exp using 1 maze for each party member. I don't personally see it mattering that you can't go above that, since you're making the best use of your time, and most people have other stuff they're usually committed to do ingame that they are taking time away from to merit, or trying to squeeze in when it's convenient (which again, is another beneficial aspect here).

I agree with most of this since that's exactly how I view meriting (New 75? Give me a week or less to cap merits). What I don't agree with (Or understand?) is how Maze XP is more convenient than regular XP. The only convenience I see is that it offer a free camp (Ironically, this condition ONLY remains true if Maze XP remains underrated and unpopular). Other than that, I don't see how it's more convenient than a merit PT (And honestly, if you "set up" for meriting as I do, you know when to go merit such that you'll have a free camp).

[Suiram]

Well, again, someone may not want to join a MMM exp PT midway because there won't be many mazes left, or someone may not want to join a conventional exp PT midway because the PT will break after a couple merits since people had already been going for so long, or because one person will leave and then there'll be downtime waiting on another person, etc. It's not an issue that's really unique to this scenario.

You are right, though, that you can't really invite mediocre players, since with MMM (at least with the setups that generate the numbers I've quoted above) if people suck you won't just get bad exp--everyone will die, so I guess that is one thing against it, if you do a lot of pickup PT exp. But if merit PTs aren't always about having the most badass groups that get the best exp/h, merit PT arguments on BG certainly are, so I didn't really factor that into what I was saying before. The only difference is instead of great PT 35k/h, good PT 30k/h, decent PT 25k/h, shitty PT 20k/h as with conventional merit camp, it's great PT 45k/h, good PT 40k/h, decent PT 35k/h, shitty PT you wipe and time out. So what? Whether you have 4 relics in your PT or just 6 competent players, you can pretty much ignore the last one (or two) on the list above for purposes of discussing what makes the best merits, I think, and so that's where my argument for MMM exp lies.

As for the convenience thing, notice that I wasn't really emphasizing that as a central point, only really mentioning it as an aside where it's applicable. What makes MMM the best exp is not its convenience, it's that it gives the best exp lol The convenience element is just a bonus, where applicable.

[Melios]

They should see by now that AV is really waste of development. I don't understand how they can justify making ridiculous mobs when they know a fact 95% of the population won't even touch attempt them.

You mean like the endgame community? Who apparently thought AV was more important than the problematic drop rates in Dynamis & Salvage and never bothered to bring those up instead of harping on AV?

Because far more players have access to Dynamis & Salvage than they do to AV. Then again, it's probably the same group that got banhammered for cheating in Salvage.

Perhaps the "advanced" players here should get their own priorities straight before they rail against SE.

[Gergall]

Other than that, I don't see how it's more convenient than a merit PT

MMM parties have predesignated drink/bathroom breaks. There's also an AH and a Mog right there in case you forgot something or decide you want to change something.

[ringthree]

Even if you only making 15k/hr (Which you have to be trying to do as some melees), past 3hrs PT you're making more than the maze. The maze is nice if you're not the class (Go PUP!) that can pick up 15k+/hr XP PTs easily or just want one merit session;however, if you're serious about XP, you gain more XP total from merit PTs.

Some people may XP for more than three hours at a time, but no one I know wants to or needs to XP for that long in one session.

[Rocl]

After two hours of meritting I pretty much want to die.

[arus2001]

Problem I have with people saying V06 tabulas are good for marbles is it does nothing for the people starting out MMM from scratch. Otherwise, you're basically at the mercy of hoping somebody put a good marble build at the goblin. From there, it's a matter of just getting people to help build up your marbles if it's not something that can be soloed (and probably can't).

[Yugl]

MMM parties have predesignated drink/bathroom breaks. There's also an AH and a Mog right there in case you forgot something or decide you want to change something.

You can do that at bird camps as well. It reduces your XP/hr just as it would with XP Mazes, so I don't see the difference. The MH part is a good point though (However, may consequently lead to less XP/hr since people won't forgo running back to get equipment).

Some people may XP for more than three hours at a time, but no one I know wants to or needs to XP for that long in one session.

Well that's the same as what Suiram is suggesting. Since I've capped merits, whenever I obtain a new 75, I just like to cap merits as soon as possible so I can *not* need to merit until the next 75.

[orson]

You mean like the endgame community? Who apparently thought AV was more important than the problematic drop rates in Dynamis & Salvage and never bothered to bring those up instead of harping on AV?

Because far more players have access to Dynamis & Salvage than they do to AV. Then again, it's probably the same group that got banhammered for cheating in Salvage.

Perhaps the "advanced" players here should get their own priorities straight before they rail against SE.

What the hell are you talking about? People had been asking for increased droprates in dynamis & salvage for a long time (salvage droprates have been a huge issue since it was released.) I don't get what you're trying to saying at all other than "Waaah, don't pick on SE they're cool." AV was a waste of development time.

Einherjar is a prime example of how an endgame system should evolve. It was completely broken when they first brought it out. They fixed mob HP, added ampoules even if you time out/lose, raised and added drops in the minor chambers, and finally fixed the stupid requirement of having to bring the same 18 people through all 9 chambers to fight Odin.

AV they had it sit there for like what 3 yrs before they finally updated it? Even then they didn't fix the fight to be realistic for even most of the best LSs. It's a slap in the face to have a monster that is for all intents and purposes unkillable (admitted designed to be impossible.) It takes how long and how many people to acquire a pop for AV why the hell would you put the best drops in the system on a monster that is broken? Again I'm not against ridiculously strong monsters that are almost impossible to beat but why aren't they like Tiamat or Vrtra? Then at least people can test theories at their leisure and don't feel obligated to spend 18 hrs fucking around with a monster that's broken because it took you 2 mths to get a pop set! AV was pet project that the Devs DON'T want us to beat! It's like a DM in D&D who who considers it his job to randomly kill his players.

If anyone thinks the initial design of AV or PW at this point is fine they have to be a moron and that says a lot about the Devs. PW seems like it's been fixed now being very very challenging but not close to being unkillable. If they change the pop items for PW too 100% then I think that it'd be pretty much fine at that point. Even that said though it's stupid that mobs like Cerb, Khim, Tiamat, etc. are a complete joke to kill vs something that actually takes so much time and effort to pop. The dev team really has designed things completely backwards specifically trying to make PW and AV as inaccessible as possible.

[Hyan]

I'd rather have the popped NM's be the harder than the world spawns IMO (since most often the loot pool should reflect the difficulty, and a good loot pool on a 24-72h HNM is just asking for trouble).

[ronin sparthos]

You mean like the endgame community? Who apparently thought AV was more important than the problematic drop rates in Dynamis & Salvage and never bothered to bring those up instead of harping on AV?

Because far more players have access to Dynamis & Salvage than they do to AV. Then again, it's probably the same group that got banhammered for cheating in Salvage.

Perhaps the "advanced" players here should get their own priorities straight before they rail against SE.

The playerbase hasnt been complaining about Dynamis?

What does it matter anyway? Remember when the "advanced" playerbase drew up SE nice charts and graphs about how to fix their own game?

The devs do what they want, when they want period.

[Virtuous Saint]

What the hell are you talking about? People had been asking for increased droprates in dynamis & salvage for a long time (salvage droprates have been a huge issue since it was released.) I don't get what you're trying to saying at all other than "Waaah, don't pick on SE they're cool." AV was a waste of development time.

Einherjar is a prime example of how an endgame system should evolve. It was completely broken when they first brought it out. They fixed mob HP, added ampoules even if you time out/lose, raised and added drops in the minor chambers, and finally fixed the stupid requirement of having to bring the same 18 people through all 9 chambers to fight Odin.

AV they had it sit there for like what 3 yrs before they finally updated it? Even then they didn't fix the fight to be realistic for even most of the best LSs. It's a slap in the face to have a monster that is for all intents and purposes unkillable (admitted designed to be impossible.) It takes how long and how many people to acquire a pop for AV why the hell would you put the best drops in the system on a monster that is broken? Again I'm not against ridiculously strong monsters that are almost impossible to beat but why aren't they like Tiamat or Vrtra? Then at least people can test theories at their leisure and don't feel obligated to spend 18 hrs fucking around with a monster that's broken because it took you 2 mths to get a pop set! AV was pet project that the Devs DON'T want us to beat! It's like a DM in D&D who who considers it his job to randomly kill his players.

If anyone thinks the initial design of AV or PW at this point is fine they have to be a moron and that says a lot about the Devs. PW seems like it's been fixed now being very very challenging but not close to being unkillable. If they change the pop items for PW too 100% then I think that it'd be pretty much fine at that point. Even that said though it's stupid that mobs like Cerb, Khim, Tiamat, etc. are a complete joke to kill vs something that actually takes so much time and effort to pop. The dev team really has designed things completely backwards specifically trying to make PW and AV as inaccessible as possible.

When sea NMs were first released AV was incredibly hard to spawn due to ridiculous drop rates, and AV not being 100% pop, but now you can pop AV every single day basically, if you were to try. Getting a jol pop is ridiculously easy, and takes almost no time. AV might have initially been designed as something you hoped would not spawn on you after you beat jol, and designed to be 'unkillable', but that was changed a long long time ago. Right now you could go to sea spawn jol, kill it and then kill AV, AV can be killed right now as is. You don't know how to kill it, but that doesn't make it an impossible to kill monster, because it is a mathematical certainty that it can be killed. The way sea works now, it is incredibly easy to get a jol pop and fight AV over and over.

PW could never have been considered 'unkillable', yes the time it would have taken to kill it before the patch was way beyond overboard, but it was killable just as it is today. If T4 r/ex for PW were 100% drop my ls would have literally about 100 pops, and we would fight multiple per week easily, 100% for them is overboard plain and simple.

PW and AV were designed to be the hardest fights in the game, specifically only those with the best gear, skill, and strategy should be able to defeat them consistently. All other HNM in the game are designed to be challenging, but no where near the difficulty of these two.

[Kaeko]

I personally see AV as quite the success. Every game has people or groups in it that for whatever reason - luck, dedication, knowledge - completely destroy most relevant parts of the game. AV represents a mob that people like this can be challenged by. To watch 4 perfectly geared Aegis PLDs drop like flies in seconds seems ridiculous, but that's only because in normal aspects of the game you expect 1 such PLD to be near unkillable.

It is true that all the "secrets" of AV amount to a huge gimmick (unlike say PW, which is straight forward), but whether the challenge is a true one or an artificially produce done, it's the same nonetheless. Most people stopped caring about AV because it's a morale killer - you can try over and over and get absolutely nowhere; but that's what makes it such a great test of dedication. It's not meant to be attempted by everyone because not everyone cares enough about the game to repeatedly get beaten down.

To me, AV represents everything SE is about in FFXI. It's not just the ultimate mob in the game, but it's clearly SE's pet. The simple act of killing it, by any means, is almost seen like a direct offense on SE and it's immediately fixed. Strategies like the WoJ and KC DRK still work on essentially every mob other than AV - it's clearly held to a different, more protected standard.

******

Overall, my impression of this mob is no matter how you end up killing it, SE will always patch it. This mob is meant to repeatedly yank in the most dedicated players that just refuse to have a mob in game that cannot be beaten. We'll find out of this is true for sure once someone beats it by full lock.

That being said - the only way to truly 'beat' AV (a.k.a. farm the hell out of it) is to not only discover a method of killing it, but to somehow keep it a secret until you've spammed it so many times it's not worth killing to you anymore.

[Virtuous Saint]

I personally see AV as quite the success. Every game has people or groups in it that for whatever reason - luck, dedication, knowledge - completely destroy most relevant parts of the game. AV represents a mob that people like this can be challenged by. To watch 4 perfectly geared Aegis PLDs drop like flies in seconds seems ridiculous, but that's only because in normal aspects of the game you expect 1 such PLD to be near unkillable.

It is true that all the "secrets" of AV amount to a huge gimmick (unlike say PW, which is straight forward), but whether the challenge is a true one or an artificially produce done, it's the same nonetheless. Most people stopped caring about AV because it's a morale killer - you can try over and over and get absolutely nowhere; but that's what makes it such a great test of dedication. It's not meant to be attempted by everyone because not everyone cares enough about the game to repeatedly get beaten down.

To me, AV represents everything SE is about in FFXI. It's not just the ultimate mob in the game, but it's clearly SE's pet. The simple act of killing it, by any means, is almost seen like a direct offense on SE and it's immediately fixed. Strategies like the WoJ and KC DRK still work on essentially every mob other than AV - it's clearly held to a different, more protected standard.

******

Overall, my impression of this mob is no matter how you end up killing it, SE will always patch it. This mob is meant to repeatedly yank in the most dedicated players that just refuse to have a mob in game that cannot be beaten. We'll find out of this is true for sure once someone beats it by full lock.

That being said - the only way to truly 'beat' AV (a.k.a. farm the hell out of it) is to not only discover a method of killing it, but to somehow keep it a secret until you've spammed it so many times it's not worth killing to you anymore.

I agree and disagree with this. Ya AV has been the only thing they changed even tho other NMs can be killed and still are in the same ways people have killed AV, but for the most case people kill things without using exploits like the WoJ. Also probably a lot of thought and design went into making AV, they likely did not want people to kill it in a way that wasn't the exact intended method. AV is the only normal NM in the game that requires you lock things from it in order to defeat it, it was specifically designed this way and frankly it is a great idea, but the ways to lock needed to be more evident.

There is a specific fight pattern designed for this NM, that is to lock it and proceed to kill it afterward. Unlike all other NMs outside of CoP you have to disable the target in order to defeat the target. If you kill AV without using ridiculous methods they will not change it, it is a fucking video game, what does it get them? All SE wants is your money, they aren't interested in anything but the appeal their games (ya I know.. they are just dumb I guess) have and your money.

The only failure in AV is how ridiculously well they hid the secrets to kill it. There is no reason to do this really. Every detail of how to lock AV should be in its spawning dialogue, maybe vague, but so someone could figure it out. The way it is, there is no reason you would ever think killing jol pet sets would lower its regen, nuking element of the day would lower its regen, or even locking its 2hrs would be possible. They created a very cool NM I think, but as I said they made it so there is no way you could ever figure it out without them telling you, which is a major failure.

[orson]

When sea NMs were first released AV was incredibly hard to spawn due to ridiculous drop rates, and AV not being 100% pop, but now you can pop AV every single day basically, if you were to try. Getting a jol pop is ridiculously easy, and takes almost no time. AV might have initially been designed as something you hoped would not spawn on you after you beat jol, and designed to be 'unkillable', but that was changed a long long time ago. Right now you could go to sea spawn jol, kill it and then kill AV, AV can be killed right now as is. You don't know how to kill it, but that doesn't make it an impossible to kill monster, because it is a mathematical certainty that it can be killed. The way sea works now, it is incredibly easy to get a jol pop and fight AV over and over.

PW could never have been considered 'unkillable', yes the time it would have taken to kill it before the patch was way beyond overboard, but it was killable just as it is today. If T4 r/ex for PW were 100% drop my ls would have literally about 100 pops, and we would fight multiple per week easily, 100% for them is overboard plain and simple.

PW and AV were designed to be the hardest fights in the game, specifically only those with the best gear, skill, and strategy should be able to defeat them consistently. All other HNM in the game are designed to be challenging, but no where near the difficulty of these two.

I disagree, on average it takes a lot time to farm AV pops not even close camping most NMs in the game that have similar drops. The only difference is it's limit on trigger NMs repops. Either way there's no reason the most brutal monsters in the game couldn't be easier to pop.

As for you popping and killing PW 100s of time, who cares! How does that negatively impact the game? The gear off PW is hardly game breaking. These monsters are completely stupid they cater to less that 5% of the game population. It's just ridiculous to ruin a HNM system by tying up a shit load of good gear so that less than 5% of the population that wants a tougher fight can get one.

Not only that PW and AV were not designed to be beaten consistently by anyone. It's so evident that the Devs believe that we should butt our head against a wall for as long as possible instead gradually adding harder fights. They literally seem to be happy with frustrating us. Also really these fights aren't that fun (unless you like exp loss) or even very strategic it's die > toss more people at > rinse and repeat with a magic gimmick like locking AV's regen and 2hrs (allegedly.) Unless I'm missing completely that's seems to be the strategy for most of these fights. Which isn't that strategic it's just attrition and a bullshit gimmick.

[Suiram]

I agree with VS. I imagine the AV designer as some sort of deranged artist who considers AV his "masterpiece," and has a very particular way that he feels his creation ought to be enjoyed lol Probably goes for sea more generally; I swear that the pop condition for Ix'DRK was changed early on from something that was far more convoluted than it is, in the patch that also lowered some respawn ???s. And Ix'DRG, while there are some theories, I'm almost certain it's not a regular lottery and I don't think anyone can say for sure what it "really" is, but doesn't really matter because you can go up there with a small group and pop it 9 times out of 10 without issue even without knowing it. Maybe the designer said, "you can fuck with my Ix'aern spawns but keep your hands off AV!" when players started complaining? lol

Same goes for Zhayolm Madame pop conditions, too, although people are less bothered by those than by AV because while it took some time to figure out the various tricks for 1F/5F/6F, it was in a fraction of the time overall and the information has since been widely disseminated.

[Virtuous Saint]

Not only that PW and AV were not designed to be beaten consistently by anyone. It's so evident that the Devs believe that we should butt our head against a wall for as long as possible instead gradually adding harder fights. They literally seem to be happy with frustrating us. Also really these fights aren't that fun (unless you like exp loss) or even very strategic it's die > toss more people at > rinse and repeat with a magic gimmick like locking AV's regen and 2hrs (allegedly.) Unless I'm missing completely that's seems to be the strategy for most of these fights. Which isn't that strategic it's just attrition and a bullshit gimmick.

These fights are ridiculously fun actually. All jokes aside the only thing I find fun right now in the game is fighting AV, and the occasional PW. AV is the game right now, it is all there is to beat until the WoTG HNM is released (can't wait btw). If you think these fights aren't fun you need to get a clue tbh. Also anyone who complains about exp loss should probably quit the game knowing they know nothing. You can get exp so easily it is sad, you can Summoner burn maat's cap in 2 months, even less if you are really hardcore.

These NMs were designed to challenge the best players, not to be killed consistently by everyone, but the best. PW is just a different designed NM, unlike AV, PW has no trick to weaken it, it is just the difference of design. CoP in general is the 'weaken to kill' type of design, you see this in Limbus and CoP dynamis.

You can talk all you want about how long it takes to get jols, but you are delusional I guess, because the reality is that it doesn't take long at all. Maybe that is everyone's problem, they have this weird perception that these NMs are hard to even get to fight, but the reality is the opposite. I never said they shouldn't raise T4 r/ex, but 100% is overboard that is just the reality.

PS: SE is god damn fucking retarded, PW drops are no where near as good as they should be, and are they fucking kidding with Dorje? A staff that drops off the second hardest HNM in the game is considerably weaker than lvl51 HQ staves that have been in the game forever. Dorje should be: magical damage+20%, magical accuracy+35, enmity-5; BLM mythic should be the same except add a few % and -15 enmity. They have no clue how to add equipment that is useful I guess. Baha2 drops a staff that made all HQ staves into 1 for SMN, where in the fuck is at least the equivalent for BLM, RDM? Also the fact that PW drops any synth mats is just about the dumbest thing possible when you look at the fact that in order to attain a PW pop you will have on average 10 of every single one of the mats PW drops, where is the logic?

[orson]

Well I guess everyone's entitled to there opinion of what's fun. I understand that it's fun to challenge yourself and defeat things to give you a feeling of accomplishment but honestly I find playing trial and error roulette with mobs like AV and PW is just annoying. If SE actually gave us the info in the game about how to weakened these monsters then it'd make a lot more sense. Even you admitted that SE should have done so with AV's weaknesses. My point about exp loss isn't so much that's it a massive negative impact in of its' self it is that zombie tactics and wiping just to bring in a fresh alliance isn't a good design. Again it's not really that impressive strategically wise it just makes having crap loads necessary to fight these monsters.

Also I'm not sure how you possibly think that getting AV pops takes no time what so ever. Ix'drk and Ix'drg in the many many times I've done them on average take 2-3 hrs to pop, then you count getting chips for JoF, camping JoT, etc. Sure all these things can be done separately with solo or with small groups but they take some considerable time. The problem is not many people have the to farm for hrs day after day. I don't see how I'm delusional I think it's more you just have a LS that has crap loads of people with a lot time to play FFXI.

[BRP]

How is trial and error not a result of being "challenged?"

[orson]

How is trial and error not a result of being "challenged?"

I didn't say it wasn't challenging but the way they expect us to weaken AV is akin to putting someone in a large warehouse with no light and telling them to find the light switch. It's just completely unintuitive, it's not good design.